Kindred Rebels: Socrates and Li Zhi Across Time and Culture
- Edward Luper
- 7 days ago
- 5 min read
Before I turned fully to art, I was trained as a sinologist: a doctor of philosophy of Chinese thought and culture. Though I’ve largely stepped away from academic life, there were once articles I imagined writing but never pursued. Now, with the freedom of a blog, I can finally share some of those reflections. Whether anyone finds them of interest is of no great concern to me; I have no academic career to protect, no need for peer review or publication. These are simply my thoughts and feelings on two thinkers who have long held my attention.
To my mind, there has always been a striking affinity between Socrates and Li Zhi (李贄 1527-1602), my favourite Chinese philosopher. It’s a shame that Li Zhi remains so little known today, though more English translations and studies are gradually appearing. Still, his voice feels too often left out of the conversation. So here, for those who are curious, are my humble reflections on the shared spirit of two rebels across time and culture.
In the grand tapestry of intellectual history, certain figures emerge not merely as thinkers but as disruptions, voices so radical, so fearless in their pursuit of truth, that they unsettle the world around them. Socrates, the gadfly of Athens, and Li Zhi, the iconoclastic Ming dynasty scholar, belong to this rare species of harsh critics of the society around them. Though separated by over a millennium and an entire continent, their lives and philosophies echo with striking similarity. Each challenged the moral pretensions of their societies, each prized inner authenticity over social conformity - and each paid dearly for it.
1. Philosophy as Provocation
Socrates never wrote a single word, yet his relentless questioning of authority, piety, and virtue lives on through Plato’s dialogues. He wandered the streets of Athens, interrogating sophists, politicians, and citizens with deceptively simple questions that exposed the hollowness of accepted wisdom.
Li Zhi, too, turned philosophy into a form of social disruption. A brilliant official turned eccentric recluse, he defied Confucian orthodoxy by publishing incendiary essays such as A Book to Burn (焚書) and A Book to Hide (藏書), which questioned the sincerity of Confucian virtue and exalted the expression of true emotions. He scoffed at moralism and advocated following one's 'childlike heart' (童心); a term that for him captured the spontaneous and honest inner voice uncorrupted by custom and hypocrisy.
Both men rejected philosophy as a system of rigid doctrines. Instead, they saw it as a way of life, a method of disturbing complacency, peeling away the layers of social artifice, and returning the individual to some original core of truth.
2. The Tyranny of Hypocrisy
Central to both thinkers’ ire was a disgust for performative morality.
Socrates believed that those who claimed to know virtue often knew nothing at all. He made enemies by exposing their contradictions. Similarly, Li Zhi despised Confucians who wore righteousness like a mask. He saw moral talk as often concealing egoism or ambition and believed that people should live according to their spontaneous emotional responses, what he saw as a truer guide than brittle doctrines.
To the traditional Confucian mind, such ideas were dangerous. Li Zhi's suggestion that women were capable of the same intellectual and moral autonomy as men was scandalous. His blunt declarations that some historical Confucian sages were “not worth studying” bordered on heresy.
3. The Meaning Behind Words
Another striking parallel lies in their shared concern for the authenticity of language. Socrates made a career of interrogating what people meant by words like justice, piety, or friendship. He knew that a society begins to rot when people use moral terms carelessly or without understanding. His dialogues are filled with disarming questions that gradually expose contradictions and pretence.
Li Zhi took a similar stance. He was deeply critical of how people used words like friendship, filial piety, or loyalty without sincerity. For Li, such terms had meaning only when they emerged from genuine emotion and inner truth, not when they were deployed as social niceties or tools of reputation. He criticised those who claimed everyone as a “friend,” calling it shallow and insincere, and demanded that words reflect the true state of one’s heart.
Just as Socrates rejected rhetoric in favour of inquiry, Li Zhi rejected moral formalism in favour of emotional honesty. Both men were acutely aware that language can either illuminate or obscure the truth, and they sought to realign words with genuine human experience.
4. A Life of Irony and Integrity
Socrates claimed to know only that he knew nothing. His ironic modesty masked a deep confidence in the moral force of inquiry. He disavowed power, wealth, or status in favour of philosophical engagement.
Li Zhi followed a similar path. After serving as a magistrate, he withdrew from public life, shaving his head and dressing as a monk, not as an act of religious devotion, but to signal his refusal to participate in the hollow rituals of Confucian bureaucracy. He retained his sharp tongue and subversive pen until the end, even when he was imprisoned.
Both men ultimately paid with their lives. Socrates was sentenced to death for corrupting the youth and impiety. Li Zhi, after being imprisoned for his writings, took his own life in jail in 1602. I often wonder how differently Chinese society might have turned out if his philosophy had been embraced, especially on the equality of men and women. When I raised this with the current leader of the new Confucian movement, Tu Wei-ming, I was told Li Zhi is still too radical... :P Exactly how does he consider it possible for Confucianism to be taken as a serious ethical system in the modern world when it denies about 50% of a population's rights, I'm not sure.
5. The Inner Voice
What unites them most profoundly is their emphasis on the sovereignty of the inner life. Socrates' daimonion: the inner voice that guided him away from wrongdoing, is mirrored in Li Zhi’s tongxin, the childlike heart that pulses beneath layers of adult pretence. Both taught that to follow this voice is to live authentically, even if society cannot tolerate it.
Their philosophies are not manuals, but provocations, designed to wake us up. They ask us to question not only our ideas, but the very framework within which those ideas have been formed. Who told us what is good? What is respectable? What is proper? And what if they were wrong?
Conclusion: A Shared Defiance
In the figure of Li Zhi, we find not simply a Chinese Socrates, but a parallel force of nature: a man who dared to ask, What if the emperor has no clothes? Across cultural and historical boundaries, these two thinkers call us to live with integrity, even when it means isolation. Their lives remind us that philosophy is not a subject, but a stance, a refusal to accept easy answers, and a devotion to the difficult, often dangerous path of truth.
In an age of curated images, moral posturing, and hollow rhetoric, their shared demand; that we mean what we say and feel what we speak, rings with urgent relevance. When words regain their depth, so too can life.
Texts and Translations for those interested in reading more:
Li Zhi. A Book to Burn and a Book to Keep (Hidden): Selected Writings.Translated and edited by Rivi Handler-Spitz, Pauline C. Lee, and Haun Saussy. Columbia University Press, 2016. The most comprehensive English-language collection of Li Zhi’s writings, including selections from 焚書 (A Book to Burn) and 藏書 (A Book to Keep), with helpful annotations and introductions.
Pauline C. Lee. Li Zhi, Confucianism, and the Virtue of Desire. Harvard University Asia Center, 2012. A nuanced academic study of Li Zhi's philosophy, focusing on his critique of orthodox Confucianism and his affirmation of desire and emotional life.
Rivi Handler-Spitz. Symptoms of an Unruly Age: Li Zhi and Cultures of Early Modernity. University of Washington Press, 2017. A cultural and intellectual history of Li Zhi’s time, examining how his ideas resonated within—and rebelled against—early modern Chinese thought.
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